


flowers start to bloom in every different hue

by orphan_account



Category: Coraline (2009)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:30:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coraline grows up, gets a tattoo, and falls in love. In that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	flowers start to bloom in every different hue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JJ_Shinnick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JJ_Shinnick/gifts).



> Title from Jess Penner's "Life Is Rosy." Happy Yuletide; I hope you enjoy!

Here is what happens: Coraline Jones defeats an evil witch.

Here is what happens next: Coraline Jones grows up.

**i.**

Her parents say she grows up fast. This is the sort of thing parents say; she supposes it’s the sort of thing parents believe is true. Wybie’s grandmother says it too. But growing up has never felt fast to Coraline, who’s young and knows it and hates it. She hates school. Lessons themselves aren’t the problem, because even when they’re boring she’s good at them, but she hates the uniforms and the teachers and the other students. 

She started looking at colleges long before anyone told her to. For years she’s been planning for the day she turns eighteen; she’s going to get a tattoo. She’s designed it already, even, on a page of the notebook she keeps under her bed. Or, well. Wybie designed it.

It happens on a day in late August, the summer they’re seventeen.

It’s not a perfect summer day or anything. It’s not even warm, and she has to wear a sweater to go outside. The nicest thing that can be said of the weather is that it’s not raining anymore. Which is perfectly true, but it _was_ raining not long ago, and it’s still cold and cloudy outside, the sky grey and the ground a mass of puddles. It’s nice enough for Mr. B to be on the roof, jumping and stretching with an enthusiasm that even Coraline thinks is kind of objectionable, though, and so it’s nice enough for Coraline to garden.

Coraline knows herself, knows that if you can say one thing for her it’s that when she decides to do something she _does_ it, and does it right. So she pulls out weeds with a kind of vengeful determination, stands in mud up to her ankles and doesn’t care. It’s gorgeous out here, even in the wet, all the flowers shiny with raindrops. When she’s done she thinks she might pick some for Miss Spink and Miss Forcible. They love it when she does that, and—

“Hey,” says Wybie, and she looks up, smiles hugely, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible driven entirely out of her head. “Yeah?” she says, and he grins half-shy, gesture at the plants she’s kneeling next to, says, “You’re gonna kill those someday.” 

So she sits down on the ground, brushes her hands on her jeans, and says, “Save them, then.” 

He kneels by the flowers. Coraline watches him. She doesn’t understand him sometimes, his softness and sweetness and confusing gentle ways. He doesn’t bother pretending to be tough. Not around her, not anymore. Around her he wears silly sweaters and when he sees a worm on the sidewalk he stops and picks it up and helps it into the mud. Somehow he’s become her best friend, her only real friend. Only friend, because she gave up trying at school, made it clear that she wasn’t going to change and she wasn’t going to be nice to anyone who wasn’t nice to her and she certainly wasn’t going to be nice to anyone who was rude to Wybie. Even the nice people she never got close to, and at some point she realized that it was just her and Wybie. The thing was, she didn’t really mind.

Absentmindedly she walks over to the bench where she’s put her backpack and opens it, taking out a spiral bound notebook and a felt-tip pen. She sits on the bench, flips the notebook open and starts to draw. Nothing in particular, just aimless sketches, flowers and song lyrics and branches of trees.

Then Wybie’s sitting next to her, and he’s looking over her shoulder. Anyone else she’d push away, but, well. It’s _Wybie,_ isn’t it, and she moves her notebook so he can see it better. “It’s ideas for a tattoo,” she says. 

“Can I, can I see the pen?” he asks, and she hands it over. He got good at art, at some point between being eleven and being sixteen, and she _trusts_ him. He takes the notebook gently and starts to draw. First a circle, and she doesn’t see what he’s doing, but then he starts to color it in and she gets it.

“It’s a button,” she says, and he nods without looking up. It shouldn’t surprise Coraline that he remembers, she knows. Of course he remembers, it’s not the sort of thing you forget. But— he _remembers,_ and it makes her feel stupidly warm and fuzzy, this certain knowledge that Wybie will never forget anything important. He’s still drawing, and she refocuses on the page. “You told me,” he says, “that the world went all…” he trails off, and draws the edges of the button dissolving, unravelling into squares. He grins up at Coraline, nervous. “Yeah?”

She laughs out loud. “It’s perfect, loser.”

He blinks. “You’re not going to _use it_.”

“‘Course I am, if you don’t mind.”

“What? Yes, no, I don’t mind, but, _really_?” 

She punches his arm. Sometimes, it’s the only thing to do. “Yeah, _really_.”

**ii.**

It’s senior year, and it’s winter break, and it’s December twentieth, and it’s Coraline’s eighteenth birthday, and she’s crashing down the hall, singing Christmas carols at the top of her lungs. “Long lay the world!” she bellows. “In sin and error pining! Till he appEARED and the SOUL felt its WORTH!” She can hear her father singing along as she rockets past his office. Her mother pokes her head out of the kitchen and glares at her. Coraline’s parents are _tragically_ devoid of Christmas spirit. There’s a tree in the living room, but it hasn’t been decorated; the halls are not noticeably decked. Coraline’s parents both have deadlines very near to Christmas, and they’ll be working almost up until the day. Until then, they won’t have _any_ Christmas spirit at _all._

Luckily, Coraline has enough Christmas spirit for everyone.  

“I’m go-ing,” she sings out, rocking on her heels, and her mother almost smiles, says, “I’m sorry neither of us is going to be able to come with you.” Coraline cuts her off, says, “It’s all right Wybie’s coming.”

“Oh,” her mother says, a bit doubtful. “Well, that’s all right then.” 

“Yep!” 

“—Happy birthday, Coraline.”

Coraline gives her mother a one-armed hug, says, “I love you too. I’ll be back for the party tonight, don’t worry,” and careens out the door, letting it slam behind her. 

Wybie’s waiting for her. Wybie is _waiting_ for her, looking as ridiculous as she’s ever seen him. Knitwear has been his thing lately: today he’s wearing a white beret and an enormous striped scarf and a sweater with a Christmas tree on it. The overall look is somewhere between “colorful cloud” and “confused hipster,” but it kind of works, and Coraline feels a surge of protective affection.  

“Happy birthday,” he says, and she grins, grabs his hand, says, “Come on, you.” 

They walk into town together, singing carols as loudly as they can. Coraline knows all the words to all of them, and Wybie’s not far behind. As they get closer to town, though, Wybie gets quieter and quieter. “Are you okay?” Coraline asks finally, poking him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says. “I’m just nervous.”

“I’m the one getting the needles stuck in me,” she reminds him. He winces. “Look, you don’t have to watch.”

“Try and stop me.”

She doesn’t want to stop him. He worries about her; even though she doesn’t thing she needs to be worried about, it makes her stupidly glad. She grabs him abruptly, hugs him tight. “You’re sweet,” she says, and he squawks until she lets him go. 

Coraline and Wybie walk into town, close enough to hold hands if they wanted to. They don’t hold hands, but they could. There are Christmas lights strung up all over town. The lights outside the tattoo place are colored and blinking, and there’s tinsel strung up inside. “Hi, Aggie,” Coraline says, and the woman behind the desk, a tall woman with short-cropped purple hair, smiles broadly and wishes Coraline an enthusiastic happy birthday. Agatha, called Aggie, is the tattoo artist, and she and Coraline get along like an entire city burning to the ground. Coraline gives Aggie the design, Wybie’s design, and they get started.

They’ve talked about placement already; they’re putting it on Coraline’s upper arm. It hurts, a lot, and Coraline’s not that great with needles, but it’s not as bad as she’d been afraid. Talking with Aggie helps— she has lots of questions about the design, and Wybie and Coraline take turns telling her the whole story. She doesn’t believe them, which makes it more fun. “You should write a book,” Aggie says, and Coraline almost laughs out loud. And Wybie asks constantly if she’s all right, in a way Coraline can tell Aggie thinks is endearing. It is, a bit. 

It’s not a big piece, but it takes a while; by the time it’s done and cleaned and bandaged it’s almost dark outside. Coraline thanks Aggie and pays, and she and Wybie say their goodbyes quickly before almost running out. 

They don’t run for long. It’s cold, and it’s a bit dark, and tonight they both feel like walking slowly. Quietly, too, until Wybie says, “That wasn’t as bad as I thought.”  
  
Coraline laughs. “It was pretty bad.” 

Wybie shrugs. “Yeah, but. Better than I thought.”

“Yeah. I’m glad you designed my first one, I, um.”

He glances at her. _He’s at least as nervous as I am_ , she thinks, and the thought gives her the confidence to say, “Um. Because. I think I like you. A lot.” She doesn’t look at him. She’s had a good day, and now it’s going to be ruined and it’ll be all her fault, and she plunges on like an idiot and says, “Can I kiss you, maybe?”

Wybie looks terrified. She doesn’t blame him; this is far and away the scariest thing that’s ever happened to her. _Is he going to scream and run away_ , she thinks, and then, _should I do it first to spare him having to_ , and then he says, “Yes.” 

“What?”  
  
“Yes, okay, let’s kiss. Can we kiss?” 

Neither of them has ever been kissed before. The best words Coraline can think of to describe it are “bumpy” and “wet” and “really, really nice.” What she says out loud is, “That was nice,” and then, “Was that a birthday present?” 

“Um,” says Wybie. “I think it might be, but also it’s not, because I have a real present to give to you at your parents’ house. And, also, I would have kissed you even if it wasn’t your birthday. I mean I’ve had a crush on you for kind of a while.” 

“Oh,” Coraline says, and she thinks she feels something warm and kind of glowy inside her stomach. “Okay.”

And, well, look at it like this: If Coraline and Wybie hold hands on their way back home, that’s nobody’s business but their own.


End file.
